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Young: Basking in memories of daughter's birth

Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009

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"Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold."

- Zelda Fitzgerald

Yet another daughter turned 21 the other night. I want to develop a cloak that time will not pass through. Too fast, too fast it moves. Yesterday, she fit in the crook of my arm. Today, I can't contain her. My whole family fills this thing they abstractly call heart, which merely expands to take in more.

Magnanimity translates as "the great breath, life." Were that the more I loved, the less I would fear - but the beauty of the concept is that the more my heart fills, the more all the other facets of existence shine. It's contrarian - the more I love, the more capacity I have for fear. One emotion doesn't seem to push out another. It enlarges the vessel, and allows more room for the menagerie of all other emotions, from the ridiculous to the sublime, to dwell.

This heart thing simultaneously yearns for the morphine of apathy, while craving that brilliance we call love. Passionate and breathless, we endure, in constant deliberation whether to sleep through it all, or to peek now and then into its center. It's a tiring and enervating task. Like fine spices or salt, we can take only a little at a time to mix with the porridge of each day.

She was born that night 21 years ago in a bath of salted warm water. For her Leboyer birth, we had borrowed a machine, from like-minded people, that would generate a constant 100 degrees in a large tank with 6-inch foam-padded sides. This pool replaced our dining room for a month while we waited for our guest to arrive. Then, with a pair of experienced midwives, she came to us at the 3 a.m. babies seem to prefer.

I have some video, but it is mostly of the ceiling.

She arrived with a wide smile, jet black hair flowing. Zeus's mind half emptied in the process. The Furies of fear came with her, drafting on the wake. With each birth, there is so much more to lose, so much more to render the heart into pieces. What can you do but bow.

I was sick last spring. Some sort of fluke, it almost killed me. In the hospital for long days, all my children were there, in their way. This one daughter said she couldn't look at me because of the fear. The fear of staring love in the eyes, knowing it might be gone the next moment. I know that fear. What could I teach her? We awkwardly chatted, avoiding the devastating light in the room. Father to child - I wish I was stronger that day to tell her, don't ever look away.

I've heard we turn to God when our foundations are shaking, only to realize it is God who is shaking them. That's the time to stand up and pay attention. Not that I am any example. But I find when my knees shake, that is when I am most blessed. Gale-force winds signal spring. Thunder and flowers are inextricably mixed.

Just another Romeo, we as humans believe we are the first to experience such a thing as when the knowledge of love first strikes us. I guess that's part of the gift, that every parent thinks his or her children are the first ever to be born. But going back less than 30 generations, there are more than a billion parents who created that unique experience that is the birth of our own matchless children. That's more parents than there were people in the entire world of that time - hence all our children, yours and mine, likely are related.

I can't stop this bus. I put my foot out to trip the fantastic, and I get run over as my kids head out with their lives. I have, in fact, written this plea to them at each age to stop and stay a spell in their youth, but they dance and laugh and kiss me as if an artifact of luck.

What can you do but bow. Bask, maybe? Radiate. Tell all your friends. And just give thanks. Thank you, Lord, for this day. Thank you, Lord, for the experience of love.

• Chris Young is an undergraduate in biochemical engineering at the University of Georgia. He and his wife live in Madison County. They have four grown daughters.